


All Alone (More Or Less)

by melannen



Series: Les Mis Crossovers That Should Not Be [6]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Red Dwarf
Genre: AO3 1 Million, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Crossover, Everybody Dies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All your friends are dead, Marius," said VHUGO.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Alone (More Or Less)

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of old fic originally posted to Tumblr. I attempted to post this as the 1,000,000th work on AO3.

Marius stepped out of his stasis pod and yawned. It felt like no time at all had passed - which was literally true, for him at least, since he'd been in stasis. Of course, it had also felt like no time at all had passed those weeks when he'd missed his shifts in Engineering because he was laying in his bunk until late, daydreaming about Cosette, which was why he'd been given three weeks of stasis as punishment detail in the first place.

"Bonjour, Marius, it is now safe for you to emerge from stasis," said the voice of the ship's computer, Virtual Humanity Universal Gizmo Operator. "Please proceed to the Bridge for debriefing."

Marius started down the familiar corridor toward the officers' deck of the ship. The corridors were dusty and empty, and the air smelled odd and stale, and other than the reassuring thrum of the ships' systems, everything was silent. "Is this one of Courfeyrac's jokes?" Marius asked. "I wasn't expecting a party, but I expected ship's security to escort me to the Captain. And for Courfeyrac to have set up _something_ to torment me with. I was only in for three weeks." He stopped and peered into a mess hall; it was just as empty as the corridors, with piles of old dry dirt on some of the tables. "Where _is_ everybody, V-HUGO?"

"They're dead, Marius," said VHUGO.

"Who is?" Marius said absently.

"All of them," replied VHUGO.

"What, Courfeyrac?"

"All your friends are dead, Marius."

"Captain Orleáns?"

"They're all dead, Marius."

"Combeferre?"

"All your friends are dead, Marius. They're all dead."

Marius kept walking down the corridor toward the bridge, listing out names as he went. They couldn't _all_ be dead, really?

"Bahorel?"

" _All_ your friends are dead!"

"Feuilly? Surely Feuilly--"

"St-Merry! Yes! Feuilly's dead! They're _all dead_ , Marius! All your friends are dead!"

"Enjolras?"

"He's dead, Marius. All your friends are dead. All your friends are dead, Marius."

"Are you trying to tell me," said Marius, opening the door to the bridge, "that all my friends are dead?"

V-HUGO pressed a hand despairingly to his temple in his simulated facial projection. "Sometimes I wonder why I even bother," he said.

Marius looked around the bridge. It was completely empty, except for more of the dirt and dust, with no sign of a crew. He had to admit that this was a bit much for one of Corfeyrac's jokes, even if Bahorel and Bossuet had been in on it. "What _happened_ , V-HUGO?"

"The engines weren't properly maintained. The shielding on one of the reactors blew, and everything on the ship received a lethal dose of radiation.

"Well," said Marius, the maudlin excesses of poetics that had plagued him for months while he was pining completely deserting him, "That's awful." He brushed off the Captain's chair and sat down. "Why's the ship so dusty? Did the housekeeping bots get damaged?"

"No," said the ship's computer. "I instructed them to clean around that, as a sort of eternal memorial. The untouched decay is kind of picturesque, isn't it? Very Romantic-with-a-Capital-R, I thought, a metaphor for the cycles of creation and destruction that underlay the universe."

Marius frowned, and nudged one of the piles of dirt with a foot. "A memorial? What do you mean?"

"I mean-that's Science Officer Combeferre that you're kicking," said V-HUGO.

Marius hastily pulled his foot back. "So who was that I brushed off the chair?"

"Captain Orleáns," said V-HUGO.

Well - no great loss on that one, thought Marius, but the others-- "So that's probably Communications Officer Grantaire," Marius said, pointing to another pile near the captain's chair.

"No, that's Engineer's Mate Enjolras."

Actually, when Marius squinted, he could still see a few bits of gold braid still shiny in the dust. "What was he doing on the bridge?"

"He was explaining to the Captain why the Engineering department was still on strike and had barricaded the Engine Room so that nobody could do maintenance."

"Oh," said Marius. "Right, I remember Courfeyrac saying something about a strike right before I got punishment stasis. Wait--" he waved a hand around the bridge. "If that's all that's left -- how long was I stasis?"

"I let you out as soon as I could, with the radiation," said V-HUGO.

"How long?"

"I'm not really great with keeping timelines straight," said the computer. "Um, a couple hundred thousand years or so?"

"Hundred _thousand_ years?" The weight of all of it suddenly fell on Marius at last, but the only way to think about it, really, was in terms of the personal. "Well, I guess my grandfather got what he wanted what he said he never wanted to see me again." And then the unthinkable occurred to him. "Wait - what about Cosette? Cosette Kochanski?"

"She's dead, Marius. All your friends are dead."

"But _Cosette_ ," said Marius.

"I don't know if it helps, but I don't think her dad would've let her date you anyway."

"That doesn't matter. I _loved_ her. I only lived when I could see her. I had a _plan_ , I was going to trade shifts until I could be on the same shift with her again, and then at the perfect moment I was going to tell her my name, and then she was going to ... to smile at me--" His plan sort of broke down there. He'd never quite gotten any further than telling her his name, to be honest. Getting up the courage to do that had seemed large enough to dream. "I think I might have put it off too long," he said.

"If you still want to tell her, she's over by the security station," V-HUGO offered. "I wouldn't try to kiss her, though, she might taste a bit gritty."

"V-HUGO!"

"Sorry!" he said. "Sorry. It's just being alone for so long. I think I've gotten out of practice at talking to people. I once spent a thousand years just contemplating the ship's sewer systems. Have you ever really _thought_ about how amazing the sewage reclamation systems of ships in the class are? I mean, they used to just shoot the sewage out into space - all that precious organic material, just being tossed out into the black! But on this ship we've got stirring turbines and reclamation tanks and a de--"

"V-HUGO," said Marius, speaking over him, "You mean it's really just me left?"

"All your friends are dead, Marius."

"You said that before," muttered Marius.

"Sorry. Did I mention I might have gone a bit odd?"

"I'm all alone on the ship?"

"Well, more-or-less."

"What do you mean, more or less?"


End file.
